Mackie's Blog!

Charlie continues to do well, the weather has been so wet and muddy we have not had a chance to do very much. Hoping for drier weather so we can get back to it.

To follow up on “try” blog I wrote a couple days ago, often what I see at clinics and when working with people one on one, is they get frustrated when their horses does not seem to get the lesson or understand the concept. Believe me, I understand how you feel. This is where OUR “Try” comes in. Because we already know what we want our horse to do , and we can understand the concept and what it should look like in the horse, we get in to big a hurry, and rush the horse. When that happens our horse get’s nervous, scared, or has just had enough of us nagging. What to do? Well, what I see most of the time is the owner or handler, just keeps going and things go from bad to really bad. Here is what I suggest, and what has worked really well for me over the years. STOP. Take a deep breath, rub on your horse and tell him you know he’s trying, even if you don’t feel that way, cause he is, and now it’s your turn to Try Again! Often I have found that if I will just stop and back up a bit. Find something that my horse knows how to do and let him do that for just a little bit, his confidence comes back. Then when I go back to the exercise of concept if I break down the exercise, asking for just a piece of that exercise, things get better, fast. We are supposed to be smarter then our horses so when you find yourself in a situation like this, STOP, take a deep breath, and try, try, again. Coffee time.